


You're In a Dark Room (Did You Know?)

by amusewithaview



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Absent Parents, Cancer, Catatonia, Feels, Grief/Mourning, Stilinski feels, idek, long-term illness, venting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-11 23:59:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amusewithaview/pseuds/amusewithaview
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles wanders the halls of the long-term care ward while his father says goodbye to his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're In a Dark Room (Did You Know?)

**Author's Note:**

> What if: Stiles met Peter pre-series?
> 
> I don't know if we have an exact timeline for Mrs. Stilinski's death. If we assume that Stiles is sixteen at the start of the show, and the Hale fire happened six years earlier, then Stiles was ten when everything went down. For the purposes of this story: Hale fire happened when Stiles was ten, his mother is put into the care ward when he's twelve. He's somewhere between 12-14 in this (TW canon is at least two years away).
> 
> Look, guys, it's a small town, not a lot of medical care staff local, it is _ridiculous_ to think that neither Melissa (the nurse) nor Mrs. Stilinski (the dead) ever ran into Peter Hale (the bored-person mime).
> 
> This... has a lot of Stilinski feels, yo. Just warning you.

Stiles wanders the halls of the long-term care ward while his father says goodbye to his mother.

He won't admit that that's what he's doing, neither of them will, but it's the truth. Stiles has known that his mother has a limited amount of time ever since they moved her _here_ , to this place that smells like death, like despair, like antiseptic and the sort of weariness that only wants an _end_.

His mom is that weary, or near to it. The lines around her eyes and mouth carved a little deeper every day.

Stiles doesn't say goodbye, though. He won't. He _can't_.

He doesn't begrudge his father doing it, but that doesn't mean he wants to watch.

So, he wanders the halls. Slips in and out of the rooms. The ward seems to be held in the grip of a perpetual twilight. Even when it's sunny out, no beams seem to penetrate the aura of gloom. The overhead lights lend even the most chipper of nurses a garish, almost nightmarish cast. Their cheer coming across as _relentless_ instead of _comforting_.

There aren't a whole lot of patients. More than a few, but the building is nowhere near full.

Stiles sees one of the nurses coming down the hall towards him, red head bent down to study the clipboard in her hand. She's one of the more pushy ones, Julie – Jamie – something like that. He doesn't like her much, doesn't think his mom likes her, either. He ducks into the nearest room, crouches down inside the door, and waits for the squeaky tread of her sneakers to pass him by.

Only after she's gone does he turn and glance about the room he's found himself in. It's very bare, sparse furnishings and shuttered windows. The soft sound of moving air is his first indicator that there's someone there, but it takes him three looks to finally locate the figure sitting in the wheelchair. The man – he thinks it's a man – is facing away from Stiles, towards a truly hideous painting of brilliant blue and purple flowers.

“Hello?” Stiles calls softly, cautiously, and waits for a moment. No response. “Hi?”

At the continued silence, he slowly moves forward, curious. The person's hair is very... fluffy. And brown, a very soft-looking sort of fawn brown that makes Stiles think of Bambi. He walks up slowly, on the person's left side, and sees that it is, as he first thought, a man. He moves until he is in front of the stranger and gasps at what he finds.

One half of the man's face is completely normal: blue eye, light skin, maybe a little tired looking. The other half is pink and ridged, scars rippling down across his skull onto his face. His hair is more scarce on that side, though what's there is enough to cover what Stiles thinks must be a pretty grotesque-looking ear. The man's head is cocked to one side, his eyes open and blankly unseeing. After a moment or two of outright staring (the sort that would get him a smack and a scolding if either of his folks could see him) he sort of gets used to the scarring.

Stiles snaps his fingers in front of the guy's face, “Hey! Hello? Anybody home?”

Still nothing, not even the slightest acknowledgement. Reassured that the guy is completely out of it, Stiles goes back to looking around the room. His original assessment stands: no personal effects, no sign that this place is occupied, really, except for the guy sitting in front of him. He moves over towards the bed and finds the chart, glancing past all the boring stuff until he finds the 'verdict' (they might say 'prognosis,' but Stiles knows that all those in the long-term ward have all been sentenced for some unfathomable crime, sentenced for _life_ ). 'Catatonia,' it reads, and in parentheses, the word 'stupor.'

Stiles sort of recognizes that one. “Stupor,” he says aloud, “does that mean you're stupid -” he searches the chart for a name, “Mr. Hale?” He laughs a little to himself, then instantly feels bad for making fun of someone who is, for all intents and purposes, in a coma. Then, perversely, he feels angry for being made to feel guilty, and turns back to his silent audience.

“Must have done something stupid,” he bites out, “to end up _here_. I mean, look at you, all burned up. What did you do, try and save a kitten from a kitchen fire?” He's pacing now, arms gesturing with his words in sharp, near-spasmodic, movements, one hand still clutching the chart in a white-knuckled grip.

“Probably just ran into danger, ignoring the harm, leaving everyone behind. Except nobody cares about you, do they? I mean, if they did, they'd be here, right? Someone would visit you. It doesn't even look like the _nurses_ care about _you_ , conditions must be pretty bleak, huh? How long have you been here, anyways?”

He glances back down at the chart, finds (after a little searching), the date of admittance: two years prior. Two _years_ , and the last name... Hale. There's something about that name... Stiles' eyes go wide, the chart drops to the ground with a clatter, and he stumbles back, sinking down the wall to crumple on the floor.

The Hale _fire_ , only three survivors, two kids and... this man. Peter _Hale_.

Stiles stares at Peter's back, one fist in his mouth to stifle some sort of... _something _. He can feel something burning and boiling in his chest, in his very veins, trying to get out. It's always fighting for release, lately, and he's always throttling it back down. Sometimes he can't even _breathe__ , he's struggling so hard. The doctor says they're panic attacks, Stiles isn't so sure._

He stares at the back of that fluffy head some more.

“I'm sorry,” he says, after a time (minutes, seconds, hours? It doesn't matter in this place).

Silence answers him.

“I'm sorry,” he says again. “Your – your family, losing them all like that.”

He gets up, because talking to someone's back is weird, no matter the surrounding circumstances, and moves forward, skirting the wheelchair and settling into one of the (likely unused) guest chairs. “You lost _everyone_ ,” Stiles says, wondering how he could handle that: losing his mom, dad, _and_ Scott, all at once. He can't imagine it. He thinks he'd die.

Stiles looks at Peter, who still hasn't moved, hasn't acknowledged his presence.

“If you can't hear me,” he begins, words a little halting, “maybe you – maybe you don't even _know_ that everyone's gone. I wonder – I wonder if that's better, somehow. Not knowing. Maybe you're living in your head, your happy place, where everyone is still alive and well and nothing burned. Maybe.”

He grimaces suddenly, because there _were_ others that lived, he remembers them, now. “But what about Laura and Derek? I mean, they don't have the luxury of avoiding what happened. Why should you get to? Your family is _dead_ , Mr. Hale. Most of it, anyways, and you -” he swallows hard, unaware of the tears that have been slowly spilling down his cheeks for the past minute, “you _abandoned_ what's left, didn't you? You _left them_. You might as well be _dead_.”

“In _fact_ ,” he sniffles, “maybe they'd b-be better off if _you_ were dead, too. If you'd died, quick, in the fire, like everybody else who didn't have a choice. 'Cause, come on, you're here, aren't you? You're here, and alive, and so that means you _could_ probably _choose_ to be with them, but you're _not_ , you _abandoned_ them, so maybe they'd be better off if you'd died, and they didn't have to live knowing that someone they care about just _left them_.”

His voice has ridden steadily throughout that last tirade, and when Stiles comes back to himself he's standing, fists clenched, almost screaming into Peter Hale's face.

Stiles stands there for a moment or two, breathing heavily, and then he just... crumples. He's on the ground, on all fours, curling around the ball of pain that's nestled in his stomach, sending out shockwaves of grief and anger and teeth-gnashing _rage_ because he is losing his family, bit by bit. He is losing his mother by inches, watching her slip away, and he knows it's only a matter of time. He is losing his _father_ , and that's somehow harder, watching his father fade into this ghost of the dad he knew, watching him sink all his time, attention, and energy into his wife and his job: his ring and his badge.

But there's no symbol for John Stilinski to carry to remind him of his son, and so Stiles is slipping through the cracks. Slipping and falling, and now he's crying on the floor of a catatonic man's hospital room, one hand beating the floor, the other clutching... clutching...

Stiles looks up, blinks his tears back, and finds that he's got his hand wrapped around Peter Hale's ankle. It's kind of bony, wrapped in thin hospital-issued pajamas, but it's warm and it belongs to someone living, someone present, in the room with him, even if he hasn't even noticed Stiles.

He sits up, sniffs, rubs his sleeve across his face. “Sorry,” he says, voice thick with tears, “that was - _sorry_.”

He stands, sends a fleeting look around the room, “I'll – I'll bring you a plant, or something. No _way_ you'll get better if you don't have something cheery to look at.” He glances over his shoulder and winces at the ugly painting, then turns a considering look on Mr. Hale.

“I'm – if this is an imposition – I, uh, sorry again,” he says softly, then grabs the wheelchair's handles and pushes the catatonic man over to one of the windows, lifting the blinds and letting sunlight in. The room is instantly brighter, and in the light Peter's scars look even more hideous.

But his eyes are very bright, and very blue in the sunlight, and at least he's not stuck in the dark room anymore.

“So,” Stiles says, “you, me, plant, same time next week? _Awesome._ ”

He leaves without a backward glance. He needs to clean up, find his dad, and spend some more time with his mom.

Behind him, unseen, Peter Hale's toe gives a little twitch.

_One down, nine more to go. Hard part's over._

_Now, let's get these other piggies wiggling..._

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaaand a Kill Bill Vol. 1 reference, because I couldn't resist.


End file.
